


this vagabond found a place to belong

by paleinthedark



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Short & Sweet, Wrote This For Practice, they r in love ur honor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28851072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paleinthedark/pseuds/paleinthedark
Summary: George falls in love with a boy (more of a man, really) who loves the rain and ocean.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 31





	this vagabond found a place to belong

**Author's Note:**

> every day i wake up and i choose to write silly little oneshots instead of a full on story

There is a boy who likes to wear scarves in rainy weather and to breathe in the sea salt in the summer. 

When the waves crash against the cliff sides, he is there. Standing at the ledge with his hand on his heart like a pledge. The stars dot the sky like clovers each night he is out, standing in the wayward ocean breeze with a lantern by his feet. 

George watches him with a sort of feeling that he doesn’t know what to make of. Intrigued, sure, by this boy with freckles and sandy hair who likes to keep the sun in his smiles and laughter. But Goerge has never been especially good with people and a strange feeling isn’t what he especially wants. 

It fills up his ribcage like useless growth, dandelion weeds and lavish petals. 

George lives in the forest at the edge of town. In a cottage of blossom red that he cannot see, with lanterns that glow like fireflies and flowers that smell like buttered popcorn. 

He is lonesome; opting to stay solo even if life gets repetitive and boring. He enjoys himself, even if the village people whisper about him with pitied words. George pretends he doesn’t care. He goes on with his life, sitting by the hearth with a book in hand and the boy by the sea on his mind. 

Many times, George has thought about leaving his home to talk to the boy. He likes to wear a mask to cover his eyes, to hide his freckles and the bump of his nose. George likes to think that behind that grinning mask, the boy holds galaxies in his eye sockets framed by browned lashes. 

The boy is a traveler. And, certainly, he isn’t a boy at all, but the way he coos at the stray cats and the way he likes to watch the ladybugs brings George to believe that he is younger than he appears. 

The villagers call the boy “Dream.” 

It’s a very fitting name. 

(George thinks of slow days where he would wake up early in the morning to make apple pie. He remembers the warm, comforting smell of baking apples and rising dough. 

Tins of pie rest on windowsills, windows themselves open like grinning mouths. George watches Dream through shy trees. George kneads the dough in his hands to keep himself occupied as the feeling of anticipation rises in him when Dream starts to wander over to his house, drawn in by a saccharine scent. 

He had to bend to peek in through the opened window. George had stared at Dream, seen through his charming smiles and words to find something small and sweet and nervous.

That day, George had decided that one of his favorite things about Dream was his mannerisms. 

Dream talked like he had all the time in the world. Voice a gentle tremor that even the earth herself swooned at; his gait something confident and otherworldly. He held himself like a king, like a fairy tail and a dream even, all at once. 

His laugh itself could have the gods hang a second moon for him if he pleased. It sounded like unbridled joy and nostalgia. The wheezing, tapered breathes he took or let be drawn out of him were like musical notes to George. 

George ignores the adoring way his eyes follow Dream. Pretends his heart doesn’t kick up like a scared rabbit’s anytime he sees him. 

Even the thought of him makes him dizzy.)

On a gray morning, George wakes up to rain and a flood that fills his dingy basement with river water. It smells like mud and gets on his nerves. Similarly, the village is having the same problem and George decides that he’ll leave them be: he has his own troubles. Dirty water sloshes against his bare toes as he stands on the staircase down. 

George gets a pail and begins to scoop. 

It takes all day to get the water down to a reasonable level. George doesn’t exactly know what to do, never having to deal with a flooded basement before. The gentle pitter patter of the rain against the worn roof of his home makes him sleepy. 

Muddy water is dumped out the window, sloshing into his flower beds and crushing posies and daisies. George frowns. A knock at his door pulls him away from his dead flowers. 

Dream is on his porch when he opens the door. His smile is small as he stares down at George through the mesh behind his mask. “Hello.” He says. 

“Hello.” George greets and steps aside. The boy with the scarf steps across the threshold, shaking like a dog and sending droplets of rain splattering. They prick George’s skin with a chill that reaches the marrow of his bones. The boy, unabashed, does not apologize. 

“Dreadful weather, huh?” Dream says, much more grown-up looking up close. He has stubble on his chin, a scar running up the side of his jaw. George doesn’t voice his disagreement; Dream seems to enjoy rainy weather, afterall, and hearing him call it dreadful feels wrong. 

The lantern hanging from his front porch is like a lighthouse in the bleary, drizzling rain. “Do you need help?” Dream asks. 

“Yes,” George says, feeling an inkling of familiarity.

* * *

Dream leaves town after a week from helping George with his flooded basement. George misses him. The cliff by the ocean seems so lonely now. 

George feels so lonely now.

The boy, more of a man, really, left after giving George a mineral that shined. Dream had said it reminded him of George’s eye, sapphire blue and different from his other, brown like toffee. George has blushed and refused to look at Dream and his stupid smile. 

Slowly, the humid summer season passes. 

Dream doesn’t come back. 

George pretends like his heart doesn’t ache at the mere thought of his freckles and his lingering touches that felt like hot coal against his skin. 

Some nights, he dreams of sandy hair and rough hands. They grip at his waist, cling to his own hands and comb through his hair. George wakes up alone with his heart in his throat most mornings now. 

Those ghosting hands had felt real even though George knew they weren’t. They still leave his skin tingling hours later. 

The leaves on groaning trees are carried by the wind, red and yellow and purple. Fall comes like morning dew, sudden and overnight. 

The copper sun hangs in the air, burning through the dying leaves that sways off of skinny trees as George takes a walk through the woods behind his house. Twigs snap and leaves crunch beneath his boots; bird calls echo in the dreary silence. 

As the day progresses the sky gets darker. The moon peeks through. George turns his face up to her while the sky continues to darken into navy blue. Chilled air brushes along his navel and sends goosebumps up his arms. 

George picks wildflowers as he traverses along. They bend in his hands with how long their stems are, skinny like the orphan children who run up along the path in front of George’s house with the local stray dogs, much more comfortable in the filth than the cobblestone house that holds them at night. 

Wild phlox kisses his fingertips as he picks them from the earth. Petals fall and collect in his shoes.

On his way back home time seems to have slipped from him. It’s pitch black by now, the fall season unforgiving as winter approaches fast. He can see the lanterns on his porch glow faintly in the nighttime. George shoves his hands deeper underneath his arms, basket full of wildflowers bumping against his hip from where it rests in the crook of his elbow, dragonbreath escaping his lips in great white puffs.

Clumsy, lumbering steps sound from behind him. A soft groan bubbles into the air like dandelion fuzz, skimming George’s heart and sending it thumping against his rib cage as chills climb up his spine. A zombie, slow and dumb with a lame leg, reaches out to him like a toddler. 

George turns away from it and runs the rest of the way home. The zombie’s pitch eyes, shining in the moonlight with gore running from its mouth plants itself in his memory. 

His frozen breath dries his chapped lips, slick with saliva from being bitten. Stepping up onto his porch, George watches the moths circle his lanters, getting too close and letting their wings catch fire like Icarus to the sun. They fall and scorch. 

His front door opens with a creak that he should really fix soon. A pair of boots a few sizes too big to be his sit in the entryway like they were always there. George’s heart skips in his chest, hiccuping against his sternum. 

“Dream?”

Sandy hair flops across a bare forehead, green eyes imploring as a familiar face peeks around the doorway to the living room. A broad smile spreads across a handsome face. “Hello,” Dream greets, laughing when George rushes forward and hugs him fiercely, a basket of wildflowers forgotten at the door. 

A wide, warm hand settles across the back of his neck. George shivers. “Welcome home.” Dream hums, the words buzzing in his chest. George tucks his chin into the crook of his neck, up on his tiptoes. 

“I should be the one saying that.” George breathes against honeyed skin. Dream shudders against him with a delightful laugh. 

George pulls himself back. He looks up into Dream’s eyes, downturned and soft, warm like pulsing embers. Dream touches him desperately. Hands running up and down his sides, brushing against him to hike up his sweater to feel the heat of his skin. It’s electrifying. 

George watches the man who used to stumble up his porch steps with flowers woven in his fingers, just for George, dip low to catch his lips in a searing kiss. 

The weeds lying dormant in George chest reawaken. Cornflowers blooming to sate the hungry butterflies in his stomach. George presses back, frozen dragonbreath seeping into Dream’s lungs as the chill from outside makes its way in through the open front door. 

“I’ve missed you,” George mumbles. Dream presses him against his chest where his heart beats, showing him that he, too, missed him just as much. 

Dream melts against him, tasting like seasalt and yearning as George cups his jaw in desperate hands. “I missed you too,” Dream whispers against the corner of his mouth. 

George has never felt like this before. 

Love is something precious, he decides, and the lightness in his chest is something similar. 

_You beautiful boy_ , George thinks, gazing up into wide eyes. He smiles, lips buzzing, head spinning. He kisses Dream again.

The world falls away until they are the only things left.


End file.
